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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  November 26, 2012 5:00pm-6:00pm PST

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it's not as easy as saying pay a little more, because in the absence of international monitoring that is not easy. you can't do it. what do you do? unions. yes, unions. despite what you might think about them, they could make a big difference for these women and save lives. just something to think about. thanks for watching. "ac "360"" starts now with wolf blitzer in for anderson. >> thanks very much. we begin with the way anderson does every night keeping them honest. not just taking sides and not just seeking the truth. we want all of the above. tonight talks to diffuse the year-end budget bomb and the difference between washington progress and real progress. americans say they want real progress and real give-and-take to get there. listen to this. 72% in our brand-new cnn/orc poll say they want president obama to compromise with republicans on taxes and spending. an identical 72% want republicans to do the same,
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compromise with the other side. as for what compromise should entail, 67% favor a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. that's what they say real progress would look like. keeping them honest, real progress is one thing. washington progress is another. so far at least we see much more of the second than the first, and we're getting late new word that any progress might be stalled. more on that shortly. first, a good example of washington progress. republican lawmakers standing up in a limited way to a beltway power broker named grovier norquist over the 1980s era pledge he pressures them to sign promising not to raise any taxes ever. >> i'm not obligated on the pledge. i made tennesseans aware. i was just elected. the only thing i'm honoring is the oath i take when i serve when i'm sworn in this january. >> that's senator bob corker and
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one of the a handful up republican lawmakers repudiating the pledge. he'll join us shortly. i'll ask him to be more specific about whether that's higher tax rates, something president obama campaigned and won re-election on. senator lindsey graham also breaking with norquist saying no higher tax rates but open to more tax revenue by limiting deductions. >> i'm willing to generate revenue. it's fair to ask my party to put revenue on the table. ilt not raise tax rates to do it and cap deductions. >> another lawmaker breaking with the norquist agrees. >> i think everything should be on the table. i'm imposed on tax increases. imt not going to prejudge it, and we should not take ironclad positions. >> late today in "the situation room" republican kevin mccarthy put a fresh spin on the talking points.
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>> if the gel oal is to raise m revenue what's the best way to do that and protect the economy? if you're able to gain more revenue by closing special loopholes and limiting them and keeping the rate down, isn't that a better outcome? >> once again, talk of tax deductions and closing loopholes, but a big note. raising tax rates, so a lot of talk but perhaps not much real movement at least for now. as for grover norquist, he told cnn's soledad o'brien today that although some republicans are discussing impure thoughts on television, they won't really act on them. >> i've had long conversations with lindsey graham. he said i would raise taxes if and then he lists this incredible list of reforms and entitlements that the democrats would never give him. as i suggested to him, i said, senator, you're offering to trade a tax increase for a pink unicorn that doesn't exist. >> whether he does or doesn't bet on taxes, pundits in
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washington seem terribly impressed that senator graham and others are even talking about going against grover norquist. keeping them honest, though, outside the beltway, most people don't know grover norquist from grover on sesame street. standing up to a lobbyist and even a powerful one is only washington progress, not real progress. first step maybe even a necessary one, but only that. so is going on sunday talk shows as both republicans and democrats are doing and talking about flexibility. >> let the rates go up to 39. let us also take a look at the deductions. let's make sure that revenue is an integral part of deficit reduction. yes, from my side of the table, bring entitlement reform into the conversation. >> so far senator durbin has limited company among some of his fellow democrats. keeping them honest during the last budget showdown, both sides talked like this, but then they backed away. also, as we mentioned a moment ago, there are late new signs na
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nobody is quite ready to cut a deal. another round of white house talks between congressional leaders and president obama was promised but is yet to materialize. a senate democratic leadership aide told us that staff level meetings p are meant to lay the groundwork haven't been very productive. one senate republican leadership aide accuses democrats of leaking details in order to portray republicans negatively. the aide notes that the talks are continuing, which ifrts can be read as some sort of progress. whether that's real progress or washington progress remains to be seen. a lot to talk about starting with tennessee republican senator bob corker. senator corker, thanks very much for joining us. let's talk about grover norquist. no new taxes pledge. you said earlier in your career, you told cbs morning news earlier today and i'm quoting now, you said you're not obligated on the pledge adding the only thing that i'm honoring is the oath that i take when i'm
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sworn in this january. so what exactly did you mean by that? did you suggest, did you mean that under certain circumstances you'd be ready to accept an increase in tax rates for the wealthy? >> well, i was just elected, as you know, re-elected, and our campaign materials during the campaign spelled out that the only pledge i would be honoring would be the pledge of the oath of office that you make when you're sworn in. that's what my comments meant. look, i think republicans have shown a willingness to look at revenues as long as we have entitlement reform. those are the two ends of the spectrum, wolf. it appears that speaker boehner has been shown flexibility on revenues and the president on sbimgtsmentes. the point of my op-ed this morning in the "washington post," is look, it's easier to make these decisions and put them behind us and start the new year with economic growth,
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having dealt with these issues, than it is to negotiate some process where we kick the can down the road and deal with this six months from now with a more limited menu and more draconian steps because we dug a deeper hole. >> you're talking about capping deductions, let's say, at 30,000 or $50,000 per household. what if the democrats insist and say they're not going to sign any deal unless there's at least some increase in the marginal rate for the wealthy, people making $250,000 a year or more. right now they pay 35%. it was 39.6% as you remember during the clinton administration. what if they insist it has to go up to 37%? is that acceptable under any circumstances? >> well, i think the two most important people in these negotiations and i think you would agree are speaker boehner and the president. that's a negotiate that they need to have. obviously, speaker boehner for a bill to pass, it has to pass the
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house. what i've attempted to do, wolf, is to show there's a way of getting revenues that we need to solve this problem. as long as it is accompanied with entitlement reforms, there's a way of doing that without increasing rates. if people want to draw a line in the sand and say it has to be my way or the highway, that might be problematic. i've tried to lay out a bill, as i op-edded in the "washington post" that deals with the issues and revenues that democrats want to see and candidly and i think all of us know have to be there to truly deal with this issue but does it in a way pro growth. >> under any of the proposals you're making, capping deductions for richer families and richer americans, would that according to your interpretation be a violation of that grover norquist no new taxes pledge? >> i think a lot of people made the pledge 20 years ago, 25 years ago, 15 years ago. i think they realize that we're
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in a very critical time for our country, and this issue has to be dealt with. revenues need to be a part of the component, and entitlement reform, true entitlement reform has to be there also in order to put this in the rear-view mirror. >> senator, leaders of both parties have suggested that major tax reforms simply won't appear happen over the next few weeks before the new year. instead it sounds like there could be an agreement and two steps, a down payment coming right now during the lame duck session includes revenue from closing loopholes, spending cuts. the hard stuff put off until next year. what do you think about that? >> wolf, we know what the options are. this congress, the 112th congress has been through two dry runs already. no congress is more aware of what the options are. certainly we can deal with some kind of tax reform next year, but from the standpoint of dealing with this fiscal issue now, it's only a matter of
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political courage. again, no other congress has spent more time on this. we can make the decisions we need to make now. i am telling you, wolf, it's much easier to do that technically and write it down and pass it than it is to try to negotiate some process that's likely to fail, like the first two processes have. we're better off just going ahead and ripping the band-aid off, making the decisions we need to make and move down the road. >> senator bob corker, thank you for joining us. good luck. >> thank you, sir. see you later. >> let's bring in the political panel. gloria borger is joining us and our cnn contributor ross doff fit and the former adviser, van jones, the co-founder of rebuild the dream. gloria, even a majority of republicans in the latest poll said tax increases should be part of the fiscal cliff solution. add that to the election results and the exit poll results.
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how much do all those numbers change the political equation for the gop right now? >> it's hard to say definitively, wolf. it changes the equation a little bit. what's more interesting and what you hear from senator corker and the rest is this sort of see mantic question, not arithmetic but semantics. it's the question of when is the tax increase not really a tax increase? if you don't raise the top rate as you talked to the senator about before, but you do cap deductions for the wealthy? does that count as a tax increase? in my book it does count as a tax increase, but would republicans then be able to say, well, we didn't raise the top rate? so i think what we see going on right now, wolf, is a lot of theatrics. you see some republicans in the senate, and i would argue that the house republicans are the ones we really need to hear from, because they're the most dug in on the tax question. you hear some republicans kind of saying, you know, that's a
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pledge that was 20 years ago, et cetera, et cetera. bottom line, wolf, is you need to have entitlement reform and those spending cuts on the table and you need to have tax increases on the table. then they can all hold hands and jump off the cliff together. >> ross, even though the styles of republicans are using to p peddle their position right now, the substance of the position is the same as it's been fosh for a long time. maybe you disagree? >> i disagree. i think this is a pretty big shift, and gloria is right. it's more of a shift from the senate than from the house. le for a long time you had republicans willing to say, look, we'll accept more revenue as long as it's revenue that comes from growth. you do a tax reform and project that economic growth gives you x amount more tax revenue and so on. that's not what bob corker and others are saying. they're willing to say we'll set the economic growth component aside. just do what's called statistic
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scoring and look at the amount of revenue you get and accept that. that is a big shift. corker is pretty up-front about this. it is in saying i didn't take the pledge. it would violate the apparent letter of the norquist pledge. it's a big concession. the question is is it a big enough concession given the stronger hand that the president has right now? i think what you see right now would have been the makings of a deal a year and a half ago. the question for the white house is, okay, you have republicans that conceded this much. what else will they concede? is it a situation where the white house's goal is saying, look, this is a once in a cycle, once in a generation opportunity to get republicans to raise taxes. let's see how much revenue we can extract? >> van, you know in exchange for the republicans biting the bullet, they want democrats to do the same thing when it comes to entitlement spends, thet cuts
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and serious cuts and reforms and medicare and medicaid. will the liberal base go along with the president if he puts that into the deal? >> probably not. part of the reason is because the democrats are in such a much more commanding position. you're talking about medicare, medicaid, social security. these are programs that are popular and working. if you look at social security, the cbo says this program is solvent until 2038. you have a hard time convincing ordinary people there's a big emergency there. the bush tax cuts are unpopular and not working, they're budget busters. you have a hard time getting ordinary people to understand why we should take a chain saw to middle class programs that are working, that are popular, to get republicans to do something that right now they're going to have to do anyway. >> van, what will the democrats do to bring in the republicans to convince the republicans they're going to really cut spending? >> well, i think that spending cuts are on the table right now
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with regard to defense. 75% of americans say defense should be cut. i think that you're not going to get a 50/50 compromise here. you get a 50/50 whether both sides are equal from the american people. the republicans are far from the american people. the democrats are right there. super majorities say hands off medicare and social security and defense spending should be cut. there's less pressure on democrats to give away the store here. >> gloria, didn't the president when he tried that deal with john boehner that didn't work out, didn't he agree to significant cuts in medicare? >> he did. there were almost there once before. there are different stories about who moves the goalposts in that negotiation. if i were the president and i were going to van, i would say, look, this president has an opportunity right now to shape the future of american budgets. the blueprint for the american economy and for american
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spending priorities for a decade to come in this particular deal. if i were the president, i would say, look, it's not going to be perfect, but we really do have an opportunity here. i have an opportunity as president. united states to lead this country into fiscal solvency if each side gives a little bit. >> let me speak up for van -- >> van, hold on a second. i want ross to wrap it up. >> well, i was just going to say i disagree completely with van on the policy. i think over the long run if you look at the growth rate in medicare and the fact that every year that you don't change social security it gets more expensive to fix, there are deep policy reasons why sbimgentitle should be on the table. on the politics he makes a strong case, and i think the lib wall base can go back to the president and say, yes, you have an opportunity to shape the future of american fiscal
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policy, but why not extract every last concession you can get. i think the fact that the van jones wing the democratic party has some political sense on their side is what makes it hard to cut a deal along the lines we're seeing right now. >> everyone will lose at least in the short term if there's no deal. taxes go up for not only wealthy but the middle class, everybody in the country will be paying more taxes and there will be very serious domestic spending cuts and very serious defense cuts if there's no deal. van jones, ross, gloria, thanks very much. let us know what you think. follow us on twitter at ac "360." you want next, millions celebrated the demise of a dictator but they're out on the streets accusing the successor of trying to become a dictator as well. things are moving fast in egypt right now. we're going there to take you on the ride. ♪
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egypt's first democratically elected president. now morsi is being called aa would-be dictator and people are protesting. some are getting killed. massive crowds today at funeral of a protestor who died overnight fatally injured during demonstrations last week against morsi putting his decisions beyond judicial review. ever since he issued it the streets looked like this when millions rose to overthrow "the dictator" hosni mubarak. this it time they accuse him of a naked power grab. today he met with members of the highest judicial body and emerged saying it his edict was clarified. it remaining unclear. we have the late heest from cairo. this clarification as morsi's advisers call it, it is just a clarification or is morsi faced
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with protests we've been seeing trying to save face while actually scaling back his decree? >> reporter: well, wolf, we've spoken to the president's office throughout the day, and they say their position is clear that they are not not scaling back on these decrees or making any concessions. they seem to be reshaping and refocusing their message, and mr. morsi's message now is that with these decrees, i didn't amass sweeping dictatal powers and they're still open to review by the courts except for the decisions that do with the formation of the pour lament and the drafting of the constitution. he says this is his way of bypasting the old remnants that want to derail the democratic process. he wants to save it. that message doesn't seem to win over the protestors, a few thousand of them behind me. it's 3:15 a.m., and the numbers are growing in anticipation of the 1 million man demonstration
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scheduled for tuesday. >> as you know, the president's office under great pressure from opposition factions and the judiciary to completely, completely reverse his decrees. are there any signs he's actually considering doing that? >> reporter: the way things stand right now, they are not. we spoke to a top adviser from mr. morsi in an exclusive interview and asked them about the possibility of concessions in mounting pressure, and here's what ahe had to say. what kind of concessions are you willing to make? >> this decision is up to the president. >> is it possible -- is it possible -- >> we are ready for dialogue with our competitors. >> reporter: are you prepared to rescind or adjust the decrees? >> the decree is up to the president accepting it. we may have some reservations, but as a whole we must take a
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step forward and not backward. >> reporter: that's where the impasse is. mr. morsi and his followers are saying, we want to talk. the opposition faction is saying, no talk until these decrees have been rescinded, wolf. >> is the opposition viewing all of this as the president morsi and his party supposedly back down? >> reporter: i think the only time the opposition is going to view mr. morsi and his followers as backing down is if he rescinds these decrees, and that hasn't happened yet. what we had happen on monday is the 1 million demonstration for the muslim brotherhood. that was canceled suddenly on monday night. they released this statement. they wanted to make sure that no one viewed this zas a weakness. they said they canceled it because they were concerned about possible violence, of course. the stage was set for an explosive situation with the 1
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million man demonstration to the opposition and the muslim brotherho brotherhood. now a lot are breathing a sigh of relief. >> thank you. let's dig deeper right now with stephen up farrell of the "new york times." aus is robin wright as the woodrow wilson center here in washington. robin, you don't think that president morsi was trying to create a dictatorship overnight, but you think he did go too far. what do you think he was trying to accomplish? >> he did go too far and the timing was terrible, but the context is really important. egypt's judiciary had earlier this year had a democratically elected parliament. there were deep fears they were installing a new constitution. nald have set egypt back to square one to elect a new parliament and from na parliament create a new body to write a constitution.
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that's a process that could take a year, year and a half. this is time egypt doesn't have. there is a real interest in moving forward and creating solutions to the many problems left behind by the mubarak era. the problem throughout the region where you see changes is the deep polarization between islamic parties and secular forces and both sides deeply afraid the other side is going to create an islamic regime or take the countries that have undergone democratic transitions back into ought accuratetic rule. >> steven, you say president morsi and the muslim brotherhood after spending decades being sidelined they're terrified of losing power. beyond that, is there much clarity about their motives in recent days? >> there doesn't seem to be. the muslim brotherhood is a very opaque organization. it's decades out of power and just months in power. this seems to have been a
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misstep, a misjudgment. the question is, what were the motivations behind it? was it as some have suggested that morsi was feeling confident riding a wave of international approval after brokering a cease-fire in the gaza operation last week? did he think that this was a time to capitalize on it, or was it just simply the fact that they fear that the old regime, the old guard might try to move against them through the courts? i think it's going to become clear. certainly he has many, many skeptics doubting his acts. we'll see them back on the streets. >> robin you make the point there's a fog of transition in egypt. a crucial point i imagine as far as washington is concerned given that egypt has long been such a key ally in the region. here's the question. is this just growing pains of a new democracy, or is something
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darker going on? >> that will probably play out over the next few weeks or months. aat this stage it's growing pains. president morsi was eight months ago an unknown engineer professor who was elevated very quickly to what might be the most important or powerful leadership in the entire arab world. he's surprised many people in some of his decisions in working with the israelis during the gaza war. he did not call for jihad and break off relations with israel. he was a responsible broker in trying to come to a cease-fire. interesting enough, today was the day talks began in trying to take this fragile cease-fire into something more enduring. that will be a very important judge of the caliber of the man, his intentions long term, and the role he'll play in the region. >> you know, it's funny, because when i was in israel, steven, last week and met with israeli officials, they were praising president morsi. they were pretty impressed by what he was doing to try to deliver a cease-fire between
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hamas and israel. what do you think about the role that he played? will the cease-fire last? >> that, nobody knows. i don't think any questions have been resolved in the long run in gaza. both sides have held off, both sides' supporters claim they did what had to be done. they both reserved the right to carry on doing it in the future. so i think it's very, very unclear what's going to be happening in gaza other than i think long-lasting harmony is extremely unlikely. >> quickly to you, robin, is that cease-fire going to last? >> i think there's greater potential for movement on the peace process than any time in recent history because there's arab governments in the region including in egypt that want to focus on the broader domestic issue, whether it's 40% unemployment among young people, creating the kind of solutions that led to these -- to the issues that led to the uprisings
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in the first place. so there's enormous pressure to look domestically. there's less interest in promoting or energizing the arab-israeli conflict than any time i can remember, and i've been covering these conflicts since 1973. >> thanks very much. steven, thanks to you as well. a lot more up happening tonight, including new and horrifying images out of syria. a video showing the aftermath of an air strike that purportedly hit a playground full of children. it comes as the assad regime launches a new wave of attacks across the country. we'll have an update from a photo journalist who spent eight days inside syria straight ahead on "360." for their clients' futures.ial d helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one.
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a big week on capitol hill. ambassador susan rice is about to face her toughest critics on the benghazi attack. just ahead, which lawmakers she'll be meeting with. y used cr f t study... so i guess my wife was right. male anner ] centrum. ways your mostomplet
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a horrifying scenes in syria. things remain ugly at the house. opposition leaders say it was made after government planes dropped cluster bombs on a playground on sunday. ten children reportedly died. they believe the attack was retaliation for the recent victory taking control of a nearby airport. they cannot verify the video or those claims. human rights groups estimate 140 people died today alone in syria. about 40,000 civilians have been killed since this all began. the violence now spilling over into neighboring countries as well. tu turkey has turned against syria following several deaths there blamed on syrian forces. that's where freelance photo journalist robert king is tonight after spending last week
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inside syria and more than eight months covering the conflict. robert, you just left syria today. you say that this time of bloodshed is happening every day. that syria has become a place where people are constantly burying their children. describe what you saw. >> well, wolf, on this time inside aleppo i was witnessing the hospital being attacked by a syrian jet fighter. it destroyed the hospital completely. doctors and nurses and assistants scrambling to dig out the wounded and dead. that was just last week, and prior to that i've seen fathers unconsolable holding their dead children waiting for taxis. children that had their heads almost cut off from rocket attacks. i've seen hungry, hungry people.
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now the weather is changing and it's getting colder, and so i've seen -- the last eight months i've been covering this region, i've seen just systemic bombings and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians. >> is it your sense that the regime, the syrian regime was targeting the hospital, or was it just indiscriminate bombing that accidentally hit the hospital? >> well, i personally believe that it was directly targeted. the hospital had taken three to four direct hits in the last few months, and there had been a consistent pattern of bombings just around the hospital. whether it was one block to the right or one block to the left. this bomb actually was dropped precisely on a part of the hospital. the building that was hit was where the medical administrative staff was located, and also
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where they would sanitize and sterilize their instruments used in operations. after that bomb hit, their emergency room was completely caved in. whoever was in there died. i think there were a few people that actually survived and were -- they broke a hole through the back wall of the hospital to help pull these people out. >> robert, the conflict in syria as you know is is going on now for more than a year and a half. do the people you talk to while you were there still have faith that president al assad's days are numbered? >> yes, i would say so. a lot of the -- the majority of the people i speak with truly believe that assad will lose aleppo in the coming months. i think they really understand that in order to take damascus and to overthrow bashar might
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take a few more months than a couple. i strongly believe from what i've heard on the ground that their will to overthrow bashar is as strong as it was two years ago. >> robert king, thanks very much. >> thank you so much, wolf. we're following other stories tonight. we have a "360" bulletin. isha. >> susan rice is preparing to face some of her toughest critics on the benghazi consulate aattacks. she's heading to capitol hill this week to discuss the incidents with senators john mccain, lindsey graham and kelly ayotte. rice initially blamed them on protests triggered by a film. the man behind that movie is speaking out about the backlash for the first time. he tells "the new york times" he has no regrets. he's back in prison after
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violating his probation on a bank fraud conviction. new york city mayor bloomberg is asking congress for $9.8 billion to clean up the mess left behind by hurricane sandy. he said it's needed to pay for costs not covered by fema and insurance companies. wolf. >> thank you. come ing up we told you abo a town in california mired in corruption charges that left taxpayers outraged. it's where a former police chief fa nagled a salary for himself of nearly half a million dollars. you won't believe what he's doing now. he wants more money from the city. we're keeping them honest next. [ male announcer ] with over 50 delicious choices
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a stunning twist in the casey anthony case. could itave changed the outcome of her murder trial? that's just ahead on "360." it's changing the conversation. ♪ do you really think brushing is enough to keep it clean? while brushing misses germs in 75% of your mouth, listerine® cleans virtually your entire mouth. so take your oral health to a whole new level. listerine®... power to your mouth™.
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another report tonight about a working class town in california we've told you about before. a town where charges of corruption and fraud have left taxpayers outraged. the former police chief of belle, california make a whopping salary, almost half a million dollars a year before a corruption case brought down eight leaders in the city government who now face criminal charges. the former chief wasn't charged in the case, and believe it or not now he says he wants more money from the city and the state. he's suing to double his already large pension. that is adding major insult to injury for the city's taxpayers who ended up footing the bill for a level of alleged corruption in local government that's hard to imagine. we have the report. p >> reporter: a 22-year veteran of the belle police force james cochran is reminded of the corruption that crushed his town at every turn he takes. boarded up buildings and vacant
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homes and lots and story front after storefront for lease, but nowhere is a reminder more stark than his own police station where he says his former police chief was there for only one reason, greed. >> he was here for his personal gain. he was not here to better the community. certainly not here to better us. >> he's talking about former police chief randy adams pulling in a whooping $457,000 a year for a police force with only 30 officers, way more than top cops in neighboring los angeles, chicago or even new york. cash put in his pocket by a city manager and others who were paying themselves inflated salaries. the city manager taking home more than a million dollars. >> yeah, you! >> this was the reaction when the public found out. outrage, anger boiled over. prosecutors nabbed eight city leaders saying they used public funds like a personal piggy bank looting the city.
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they face criminal corruption charges. chief randy adams wasn't charged because he didn't directly control the money. even a judge wondered in court, i don't know why he's not a defendant in this case. so where is adams today? he lives in simi valley 50 miles northwest of belle just off of country club drive in a gated community. his five-bedroom, five bath home overlooks a golf course. >> disgusting, and the fact he's living the lavish lifestyles on the backs of us. >> he calls adams the one that got away. >> arrogant, cocky, criminal. if i can find the dictionary where it is corrupt police chief, whatever, his picture would be on it. he's the epitome of what is wrong in it country. >> she says that because of these e-mails from 2009 exchanged between adams and angela, bell's former assistant city administrator.
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he negotiated the terms of his police chief wrote, i'm looking forward to seeing you and taking all of bell's money. okay, just a share of it. she replies, lol, you can take your share of the pie just like us. we will all get fat together. the salary quietly approved by the former city manager. >> my jaw drops when you see it. >> bell's new city manager says he still can't believe what happened and what's still happening. talking to me in the rundown city council chambers, he says walking away with that half million dollar paycheck wasn't enough. the former police chief is suing the city of bell for what city sources calculate would amount to $600,000 in severance and unused sick days. >> from this small city and community to then have it revealed and get fired and actually comes back for severan severance, it's incredible. it's outrageous. >> randy adams wants more money
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from the state of california for his pension. adams is also suing the state to double his pension to half a million dollars a year for the rest of his life. how? his oversized salary in bell. that was his last job. his highest-paying job, and even though he only held the position a year, he says his pension should be based on that pay. chief randy adams i'm from cnn. we caught up with randy adams in simi valley. the people of the city of bell saw you milked them for he a sal extraordinarily high and now you're doing the same thing with the state. >> well, i disagree, of course, with those types of characterizations. when one day i'm able to tell my complete side of the story, i think you'll see there is a completely different side to that story. unfortunately, i can't talk at length about it, but that's the situation. >> do you think you deserve to make double what the lapd chief made?
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>> i've made all the comments i can make at this time. >> i spoke to his attorney by telephone who said adams is a good cop who does deserve to double his pension to half a million dollars a year for that one year of service in bell. but the people who run california's pension system say absolutely not. what is he asking for? >> basically he's trying to double his pension from $19,000 a month, which is far surpassing almost anyone else in our system as a retiree to bobby brown $38,000 a month. >> does he deserve that from the taxpayers? >> the taxpayers are outraged whenever anyone does something like trying to use fraud and deceit and hide the way in which they got paid. you don't deserve it and it's not allowed. >> a proposed decision agrees rejecting the aappeal, but adams is appeals. inside his gated community he
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aawaits a final decision. >> she's joining us now from los angeles. do people of bell believe that adams only wanted to take the police chief job for a short time so he could boost his pension? >> they believe it's twofold. in the short term, wolf, they believe it was the inflated paycheck but in the long term absolutely. it's called spiking your pension. you take a job to increase what the state will pay you for the rest of the life. the state pension board also agrees and that's why they're fighting it. >> why did they pick adams for the job in the first place? >> well, it's all bho you know, right? wolf, in this situation the documents appear to show it was who he was friends with, and that got him into the city of bell and that he was merely just trying to cushion that pension pay. but the people say, hey, we don't want this guy. we didn't think he was anything special, and the state aagrees with that. they believe it was a back room deal.
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that's why they're also fighting it. >> thank you. we appreciate it very, very much. the google searches that reportedly never made it into evidence in casey anthony's murder trial. would they have convinced the jury she murdered her 2-year-old daughter, kay leechlt .
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ally bank. why they have a raise your rate cd. tonight our guest, thomas sargent. nobel laureate in economics, and one of the most cited economists in the world. professor sargent, can you tell me what cd rates will be in two years? no.
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if he can't, no one can. that's why ally has a raise your rate cd. ally bank. your money needs an ally. but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. if you're still having difficulty breathing, ask your doctor if including advair could help
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improve your lung function. get your first full prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. is efficiently absorbed in small continuous amounts. citracal slow release continuously releases calcium plus d with efficient absorption in one daily dose. citracal slow release. let's get the latest on other stories. >> a new twist in the casey anthony case. detectives investigating the disappearance of her daughter,
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caylee, overlooked more than 1200 entries on a computer in anthony's home including a google search for fool-proof suffocation methods according to reports. she was acquitted last year. a new study says injuries are skyrocketing from the inflatable bouncy houses that kids jump in at fairs and birthday parties. the first study shows the number of injuries more than doubled from 2008 to 2010. in 2010 an average of 31 children were treated in emergency rooms every day. arm and leg injuries are the most common. and it's time for powerball fever again. no one hit the jackpot in saturday's $325 million drawing. the next drawing, wolf, is wednesday worth an estimated $425 million. >> you going to buy a ticket? >> yeah! are you? >> of course. one or two or maybe i'll win. who knows, even if i do, i'll be back to work the next day.
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